1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus having a function of a printer, a scanner, a facsimile apparatus, a copier or the like, or a composite apparatus of these apparatuses, and a control method and a control program for the image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in an image forming apparatus and control for the image forming apparatus, it is mainly constructed a system in an execution environment realized by a real-time OS (operating system), having high dependency on an architecture for a built-in system, that is different from a general-purpose OS mounted in a PC (personal computer).
On the other hand, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (Kokai) No. 2001-249814 (2001), it is being tried to construct another execution environment for a built-in system, such as Java (registered trade name) or the like, in the above-described real-time OS, and downloading and mounting an application module having high portability for performing, though limited, simple control of a copier.
However, conventional approaches have the following problems. That is, for example, in an image forming apparatus and a control method for the image forming apparatus constructed by a single real-time OS, portability of software of a built-in system is inferior. Accordingly, if modification or the like of only an application module for controlling the image forming apparatus within the image forming apparatus is generated, the entire system must be updated together with an engine control module and the like for which modification is unnecessary. As a result, the operation is inefficient, because, for example, a serviceman or the like must update the system using a special stool or the like.
As described above, aiming at a development environment having high portability, a system is being developed in which another execution environment is constructed in a real-time OS. However, such an approach has insufficient functions such that, for example, an application module in another execution environment cannot access the module in the real-time OS via an internal interface, complicated processing equivalent to the application module in the real-time OS cannot be flexibly performed, and an interface different from an interface for controlling an apparatus of the system must be used in the same apparatus, and has problems in that, for example, formation of application software is complicated.
In conventional management of an application module itself, only functions of downloading and erasing the application module are mounted, and it is impossible to perform settings of, for example, extracting and analyzing an application module causing a problem using an uploading function, and prohibiting execution of a downloaded application module. Other problems are such that, for example, meaningless downloading is performed for application software requiring a function that is not supported by the image forming apparatus, and each OS scrambles for a memory resource or the like within the image forming apparatus, resulting in incapability of performing an efficient operation because a necessary resource is not obtained when performing minimum necessary processing.